Ridiculously Good !
You play as Grayson hunt , a member of Dead echo which is a special ops unit working under the The Confederation of Planets' General Sarrano , The first few missions have you doing some secret undercover stuff for the general but soon you find out The general is a lying piece of trash who used you and your dead echo teammates to do his dirty work and you decide to dish out some payback , while on this quest for payback your dead echo squad gets wiped out except for you and ishi who becomes injured in battle and is implanted with some bionic parts which make him part human part cyborg..and as if life wasn't hard for them already they're stranded on some planet which is gonna get blown up soon so you need to escape and only way to do that is to assassinate sarrano and steal his ship ... needless to say story is not Bulletstorm's forte , the story is here just for the sake of having a story ..there's nothing here that really makes you feel involved .. the protagonist isnt believable either with his overly masculine voice .. ishi on the other hand is a wonderful character with his dual personalities always adding up the spice to the cut scenes ... later on in the game you meet a female character ( cant remember the name .. sorry ) who like grayson also wants vengeance .. they meet up .. argue with each other...then decide they need each others help to get off the planet so they team up etc etc like i said its nothing you haven't seen before but the good part is that bulletstorm knows that and doesn't take itself too seriously , there are tons of funny one liners here and there which will make you grin
Graphics -
Incredible is the word . the Presentation is top notch... The graphics are gorgeous to look at and the level design is excellent throughout , stygia feels like a familiar yet unearthly place ... the levels are very varied , you play in places like a garbage dump , you evade a giant rolling wheel through a canyon ... you fight across a dam and kill giant beasties in a city
Sound -
The sound is good , the guns and the grunts sound impressive ... the music is your standard action game music nothing to really write about .. voice acting may seem cheesy at first but you'll start liking it after a while
Gameplay -
This is where Bulletstorm sets itself apart from othe FPS's ... for one the shooting feel has been done to perfection , the guns feel really good to shoot and the impact feels even better , you have your standard weapons like assault rifle, pistol , shotgun , sniper etc etc but there is a feature called ' Charge Shot ' which amps up these weapons capabilities , i.e the assault rifle becomes an instant kill shotgun , the pistol fires a fatal firecracker ( yes firecracker ) of some kind and so on which is a nice touch
besides the firearm you get two more abilities namely , KICK ... which like the name suggests allows you to kick enemies .... after you kick an enemy he flies off in mid air in slow motion for a few seconds allowing you finish him off with your gun or you can kick him again .. one of my favorite maneuvers in the game is the ' Bulletslide ' in this you slide from a distance and ram into your target not only is this helpful as your sliding speed is very fast which allows you to dodge targets and hit them all at the same time but also it feels very satisfying to pull it off
Another Weapon in your arsenal is the WHIP , which is like this Whip made out of some blueish energy kinda reminds you of the light-saber .... it helps you pull targets towards yourself..see an enemy at a distance , whip him over here and finish him off with a melee attack..or you see a ton of barrels hanging above your enemies use the whip and barrage it on them .. like in ' kick ' when you use the whip the target flies towards you in slow mo for a few seconds .. you also get an upgrade to your whip later on in the game called " Thumper " , once used it throws all the enemies in the area in the air , really proves useful when you're surrounded by dozens of foes
The highlight of the game though are SKILL SHOTS , Skill shots are basically achievements you get from killing your foes in unique ways for example kick this enemy into a water body and you get ' Fish food ' , or slay an using a barrel and you get ' Enviro-mental ' , these are just a few of the tons of skill shots you can achieve , there is basically a skill shot for every way you kill an enemy some are obvious while others are pretty unique ... not only does this feel cool but also makes you try different methods to kill your enemy hence the gameplay feels fresh , there is literally never a dull moment in the game
you also get points for the skill shots you achieve , the points you get vary upon the uniqueness of the skill shot ... these points are then used to buy ammo , upgrade your weapons , buy health etc etc
One thing that hinders the gameplay though is the extremely dumb AI , all they do is run at you from all angles screaming to get shot , same can be said regarding the friendly AI , they literally DO NOTHING ! all the while i was playing the game i felt like whats even the point of having these guys by my side , they're useless !
i mean bulletstorm features quite a bit of different enemies but they act all the same hence it doesn't feel like you're fighting different guys .
But still these flaws don't really hinder the gameplay much and are easy to overlook , for one the positive points in the gameplay of bulletstorm outnumber the negative ones
Verdict -
PRO's
+ Incredible graphics
+ Fresh game play
+ Skill shots are extremely fun to earn
+ Varied level design
+ Good sense of humor
+ You get to fight a giant carnivorous plant and the father of god zilla
+ Perhaps the only game where you can shoot an enemy in the ass with a rocket and get awarded for it
CON's
- Story , wait what story ?
- DUMB AI
- Mediocre music
- * spoiler alert * very very pathetic ending